Walk-in cold rooms, such as walk-in coolers, freezers, or other refrigerated environments, are common in various industries, including supermarkets and grocery stores, commercial kitchens, and other food service facilities. These cold rooms typically have one or more access doors for entry and exit.
A problem associated with these types of doors is that their size and thicknesses cause them to be quite heavy. As such, these doors may include a door closer to aid in returning an open door to its fully closed position. These door closers include a spring to actuate the door closing movement. The tension in the spring may be adjusted to vary to closing strength of the door closer depending upon the weight of the door. These door closers also insure that the door is kept in a closed position to maintain a cool environment within the cooler.
A problem with today's door closers is the adjustment feature of the spring tension. Typically, the door closer includes a spring coupled at one end to a rotating torque arm. The torque arm is incrementally rotated to index the torque arm, with each indexing increasing the tension of the spring in one direction and decreasing the tension in the spring in the opposite direction. However, an installer may over index or over tension the spring causing the spring to break either upon indexing the torque arm or initially opening the door wherein the spring is placed under additional tension. Another problem with current door closers is that in order to adjust the tension of a spring, the installer may manually move the rod extending from the torque arm and pushing upon the door while simultaneously moving a catch to lock the position of the spring. This adjustment method is time consuming, tedious, and potentially dangerous as the spring may abruptly move the door closer arm should the tension upon the rod be accidentally released.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for a door closer that will allow for different door closing tension upon the door to insure proper closing and sealing of the door against the doorjamb. It is to the provision of such therefore that the present invention is primarily directed.